The Nightjar

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While visiting Mark Young’s blog, Gamma Ways, I noticed a link to my old poetry blog, The Nightjar, produced from 2003 to 2006. I haven’t looked at this for years. Reading it now is kind of like sifting through an archaeological dig. Some poems I remember, others I don’t recognize as something I had written — I could be reading the work of a completely different person. I’m jealous of a few of the poems; they seem to have been written under some kind of scorching pressure — out of necessity. Just as strange is going through the links in the sidebar, most (though not all) seem defunct; the bloggers have moved on to something else, and if the link isn’t just gone, then it leads to a blog that’s in suspended animation — deserted at some point, but still containing all its furniture, the last domestic utterances hanging in the still air. Looking at them, though, I get all nostalgic. Glad to see Shanna Compton still around, and quirky Topher’s Tunes Times. Somehow I knew that Cassandra Pages would still be steadily posting. Actually a number of people in the sidebar are still blogging, but on newer sites.

In any case, I’m thankful the Nightjar still exists (thanks, Mark, for letting it sit in your sidebar). I’m going to download the poems to a file before internet rot dissolves them.